I have a '91 E150 with the inline 6 engine. Lately I've been having an intermittent problem starting it. Sometimes when I try to start it, the starter is really sluggish... the engine turns, pauses, turns, pauses, turns, pauses, like it doesn't have enough power to keep turning the engine over at a constant speed.
I put a new battery in probably 3 or 4 months ago, so I doubt that is the problem, but I will check to be sure. The last time it was really a problem I had been driving it for 30 minutes or so, turned it off for 10 minutes, then it would barely turn over when I tried to start it back up. Then yesterday I went out to see if it would start and it started right up, no problems at all. However, I have noticed it being sluggish when the engine is cold, so I don't think it's isolated to hot-starting conditions.
Any ideas? Should I just yank the starter out and get it checked? Since this problem is intermittent, would they be able to tell anything by checking the starter?
thanks for any help you can provide,
Eric